MOSAIC project couldn’t have started at a better time. In January 2024, the VET policy maker of Artisan education, Inka Ruokolainen, from the Finnish National Board of Education, organised a webinar to discuss about the need of new curricula for the Artisan education.
My name is Mona Olander and I’m a long-term furniture making teacher and member of VET working life committee at the National Board of Education. Together with Elina Kollanus, Coordinator of the MOSAIC project in Finland, we were invited to present its goals at the webinar.
To emphasize the importance of the need for new technology content in the national curriculum, I visited together with Ola Kukkasniemi, CEO of the furniture making company Wooden Oy (https:www.wooden.fi), Inka Ruokolainen at the National Board of Education in Helsinki, in September2024.
Ola Kukkasniemi is also a company partner in MOSAIC and lives as he learns, with a High-tech workshop that also follows the sustainability goal of Zero waste. He came well prepared to the,workshop, equipped with examples of Artisan products made with CNC machines from cut-off pieces of wood from the regular production. The same products are sold at the Finnish design shop (https:www.finnishdesignshop.fi). He concretely showcased the urgent need for new technology education in the Artisan curriculum.
Inka Ruokolainen took this issue to be further explored in the National Board of Education with her colleague Jarno Pöntinen. Pöntinen is in charge of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) industrial education in Wood, in Finland. Together they organised a webinar in August 2025 for all VET schools that currently offer Artisan Wood education. I’m happy to tell you that, as a result of this meeting, the following new training modules developed in MOSAIC project will be included in the new Artisan curriculum from the beginning 1st of August, 2026:
- CAD 3D modelling and drawing production,
- CNC machining in the wood product industry,
- CAM in the wood product industry,
- Manufacturing 3D printing product.
It makes a big difference because, with the skills developed with these modules ,Wood Artisans will enlarge the spectrum of their future working places. The digital skills that learners will develop will be widely needed in the sector in future and are already needed currently. You could say this is a victory for the Future of Making team in MOSAIC.
